


(Don't Fear) The Reaper

by darkjaden825698



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, Disappearance, Gen, Halloween, Mystery, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27316570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkjaden825698/pseuds/darkjaden825698
Summary: Dad’s been late coming home from work before, but he always calls. At the very least, he texts. This is unlike him. Sean can feel the fear chipping away at his stomach like a sculptor chiseling a new statue. He shudders to think what kind of anxious, panicked sculpture would come from that.**Halloween special!**
Relationships: Daniel Diaz & Sean Diaz, Sean Diaz & Lyla Park
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	1. All Our Times Have Come

**Author's Note:**

> SO here it is! Well, part of it! Finally! I wanted to post the whole thing today, but it's not finished yet, and it's...it's long. This chapter is like 2300 words or so and it's like, literally just the inciting incident. I'm going to _try_ to do daily updates for this, especially since this was supposed to be the replacement for this week's chapter of Closer, but I might need to take a few days to finish it. It's almost done, I think. The first draft. I'm sorry it's gonna be a while lol

When Sean was a kid, he used to hate when Halloween fell on a weekday. Dad never let him stay out too late on a school night, and he always had a massive sugar hangover the day after. Now at 16, he doesn’t mind it as much. Dad usually takes Daniel out trick-or-treating, leaving Sean the house to himself to invite Lyla over to watch scary movies and pass out candy to kids. It’s a Halloween tradition.

But Halloween is on a Monday this year, so as Sean drags himself out of bed and into the shower, he has to reconcile his Halloween excitement with his post-weekend blues. Especially after the amazing weekend he had at Eric’s cabin party. He was still too shy to ask Jenn out, but they talked! Like a lot! So that’s something, right?

Once he’s showered and brushed his teeth, he wakes up Daniel as always—by gently tapping on his door and proclaiming it’s time to get up—and heads into his room to get dressed.

“Time to get in the Halloween spirit,” Sean says to nobody in particular. He flips on the Halloween playlist he spent all month cursing—it starts with the all-time classic “Monster Mash,” and ends with “This is Halloween” from Tim Burton’s  _ The Nightmare Before Christmas _ , with some other classic spooky tunes, and some Oingo Boingo thrown in for good measure. He nods his head and shakes his hips along to the music as he gets dressed.

Peacock High School has a No-Costume policy, which is beyond lame, but people like to dress up anyway—little things, school-appropriate things, like Jenn with her adorable cat ears and whiskers. The school staff doesn’t like it, but there’s nothing stopping him from slapping on an eyepatch and a puffy shirt and calling himself a pirate.

Sean gathers his things for school and goes to head out to the bus stop. Daniel’s door is still closed, so he bangs on it before leaving. “Hey, come on, dude. Are you ready yet?”

Daniel doesn’t respond.

Sean groans. “Your bus comes 15 minutes after mine, so you’d better be ready.”

Still no response on the other side of the door.

“Daniel?” Sean tries to open the door, but it’s locked. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” He bangs on the door again, louder this time, and raises his voice. “You better not have fallen asleep again. Dad  _ told _ you not to stay up all night on your tablet.”

Speaking of Dad, he usually hates when Sean starts shouting this early in the morning. He’s also usually in the kitchen, scrambling some eggs or making waffles for Daniel’s breakfast. (Sean doesn’t like to eat first thing in the morning.)

_ Oh yeah _ , Sean remembers. Dad told him last night he had some new client who needed a fast fix, so he had to go to work early this morning.

Daniel still hasn’t responded, and Sean is about to be late to the bus stop. There’s no fucking way he’s missing the school bus again. It’s way to fucking cold to run all the way to school. Besides, Sean’s a track runner, not cross country. He’s good for speed, but distance and pacing are not his forte.

He bangs on the door one last time for good measure. Fuck it. Not his fault if the kid misses school. “Da—”

“I’m up! Jeez! Gimme a second.”

True to his word, a second later, the door cracks open and Daniel appears in the space between, wearing his tattered blue flannel dyed red with his fake zombie blood.

“I was just finishing up my costume,” he says.

“Well, don’t take too long. You’ll miss your bus.”

“If I do, Dad’ll just take me.”

“Dad’s not here, smartass. He had to work early.”

“Oh.”

Sean rolls his eyes. Dad never offered to drive  _ Sean _ to school when he missed the school bus, but he tries not to let it show.

“Yeah well, I’m heading out. You gonna be okay on your own?”

Daniel nods. “Yup. I’m almost done.”

“Okay. Cool. Then I’m out.” Sean flashes him the peace sign and starts out the door. “Don’t forget to eat something,” he calls out. “There’s granola bars in the cupboard, and  _ no _ chock-o-crisps for breakfast.”

“Okay,  _ Dad! _ Jeez.”

# # #

“Nice eyepatch, Captain Diaz,” snorts Lyla as Sean reaches the bus stop.

“ _ Arrgh. _ ” Sean hooks his index finger. No way the school would allow him an actual pirate hook, fake or no.

Lyla’s dressed in a sailor outfit with a red-trimmed skirt. It’s a lot longer skirt than she would usually wear with a Sailor Mars costume, (yes, Sean watches Sailor Moon and can identify which sailor scout she is by her skirt color, shut up), but that’s just so the school doesn’t have an aneurysm over her dress code violation. She’s also wearing a pair of blag leggings which Sean is pretty sure Rei doesn’t wear. But it’s cold, and Lyla’s not even wearing a hoodie, so he’ll let it slide.

Once they’re inside the school, Sean takes off his hoodie to show off his puffy shirt, which gets another laugh out of Sailor Lyla. Sean doesn’t care, though, because when he walks into homeroom, he gets a smile from Jenn Murphy.

She’s wearing the same cat outfit from the Halloween party on Friday, and it somehow looks even cuter on her now than it did then. Sean smiles back at her as he makes his way to his seat, hoping it doesn’t look as dreamily goofy as he thinks.

“Sick costume dude,” Eric says, coming up behind him and smacking on the back—he does it affectionately, but it’s one of those “playfully hard” smacks that actually kinda stings.

“What  _ arr _ ye talkin’ about?” Sean says in just the most abysmal pirate voice he’s ever put on. “I be lookin’ this ev’ry day.”

In the row next to them, Jenn giggles, and Sean’s heart flutters.

“Downloading movies doesn’t make you a pirate,” Ellery says, sliding into the desk behind Sean’s.

“ _ Arr _ , ye just be jealous.”

From the front of the room, Mr. Ellison coughs, and Eric, along with a few other stray students, scurry to their desks.

The day goes by pretty quickly. Sean gets some compliments on his outfit, and his eyepatch nearly causes him to walk into a wall at least twice before Vice Principal Miller asks him to take it off.

When he gets home, the house is still and empty. Quiet. Dad must still be at work, and Daniel won’t get home for another half hour.

He has the house to himself.

He  _ never _ has the house to himself!

Granted, he just uses that time chilling in his room, but it’s nice knowing that Daniel won’t just burst into his room and catch him off-guard. He takes off his “costume”—lingering for a bit before getting dressed—and lays on his bed, listening to his playlist through his speakers.

It’s partway through “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult when he hears the front door open, which means it’s unfortunately time to put on pants. Sean mourns the loss of freedom as he slips into a pair of bright orange boxer briefs and slides his jeans over his legs.

“Hey,  _ enano _ ,” Sean says, joining his brother in the kitchen for a mid-afternoon snack. “How was school?”

“Good.” Daniel stands on his tip-toes, gazing into the cupboard for something to eat. He eyes the bucket of Halloween candy greedily.

“Hey, that candy is for the neighborhood kids.” Sean smacks his hand away as he reaches up for it.

“Hey! I’m a kid in the neighborhood, aren’t I?”

Sean smirks and rolls his eyes. He ruffles his brother’s hair. “You’ll get plenty of candy tonight, buddy. You just gotta wait for Dad to get home.”

“Okay…” Daniel pouts. He settles for a bag of chips and trudges over to the couch to turn on the PlayBox.

“What did everyone think of your wicked zombie costume, dude?” Sean vaults himself over the back of the couch to join Daniel, landing by his side with a bit of effort.

“They said it was cool. Noah dressed as Master Chief and pretended to shoot me with his light up ray-gun.”

Damn, the kids get full-on space war attire, but Sean can’t even have a damn hook?

“Where’s Dad?” Daniel asks.

“Still at work, I guess,” says Sean with a shrug. “I didn’t see his car in the driveway.”

“Oh. I hope he gets home soon. I can’t wait to go trick-or-treating.”

He is out a bit later than usual, Sean notices. Maybe he’s gotten stuck in traffic or something? There’s probably a lot of people heading out to bars tonight (despite it being a weekday.) 

Whatever. Sean just hopes that Dad gets home soon so he doesn’t get stuck with Halloween babysitting duty. He steals a chip from the bag and puts it in his mouth, crunching the salty snack loudly. “I’ll bet.”

# # # 

At around 7:30, Sean is still jamming out to his Halloween playlist, waiting for Lyla to arrive, when there’s a knock at his door. He can barely hear it over the chorus of “Time Warp,” but its persistent pounding cuts through. Sean groans and turns off his music before opening the door.

Daniel stands in the doorway, dressed in his zombie costume. His mask sits atop his head, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice. Masks are the one thing his school doesn’t allow kids to have, for some reason.

“Hey! Looking good, zom-boy!” Sean says.

Daniel does a little twirl to show off the whole outfit, and flips his mask down. “ _ Grrrrah!!!!  _ Thanks!” he says in a gravelly, fake monster voice. He lifts the mask back up. “Have you seen Dad? It’s time for trick-or-treating!”

Sean blanches. “He’s not home yet?”

Daniel shakes his head.

_ I’m sure it’s fine,  _ Sean thinks. It’s probably fine. There are tons of reasons he would be home late right? Like maybe the garage got extra busy right before closing? Or maybe he decided to stop for dinner and the wait was long because of the Holiday. Yeah. There’s gotta be a totally reasonable explanation.

Sean swallows. “Weird. I’ll...give him a call. You go get your pillowcase for your candy. I’m sure he’s just stuck at work and didn’t realize what time it was.”

“Okay!” Daniel says, completely ignorant to the worry creeping into Sean’s voice.

Dad’s been late coming home from work before, but he always calls. At the very least, he texts. This is unlike him. Sean can feel the fear chipping away at his stomach like a sculptor chiseling a new statue. He shudders to think what kind of anxious, panicked sculpture would come from that.

The first time he calls, he gets Dad’s voicemail. He doesn’t bother leaving a message—Dad never checks them anyway; he just calls back. The second time, the ringer stops abruptly, but he hears nothing. “Dad?” he says.

There’s a click. The line goes dead.

Panic starts to bubble up from the pit of Sean’s stomach. What the hell is happening? Did Dad just hang up on him? He would never do that. But then...Who was that, and if not Dad…?

Before he can think to do anything else, he’s dialed Lyla’s number. Her cheery greeting when she picks up leaves Sean feeling nauseated.

“Diaz! What’s up? I was just about to hit up the Momster for the keys and head over. I was thinking we could start with Nightmare on Elm Street this year, and then—”

“Lyla, I can’t find my dad.” The weight of the words drag down his heart even further. Saying it, it’s like admitting it. And Sean isn’t...he still can’t wrap his head around it.

A stunned silence is Lyla’s response, until finally she says, “Wh-wait, what? What do you mean, you can’t find him?”

“I haven’t seen him all day. I think he may have even been gone all night. He worked late and his car was gone in the morning so I just assumed—”

Sean has to stop and catch his breath. A sob hitches in his throat.

“Whoa, whoa, okay. Calm down. I’m sure everything is fine. Have you tried calling him?”

“Yes! First time he didn’t pick up, and the second time...someone answered, but I don’t think it was him, ‘cause they hung up on me. Lyla, I’m so scared. What if something happened to him? And I didn’t even notice until a day later, I…what kind of son doesn’t even notice his own dad is missing?”

There’s shuffling on the other end of the line, and Sean hears the clanging of a set of keys. “Okay, don’t freak out. Stay calm,” Lyla says. “I’ll be over in five minutes and we can figure this out.”

“Okay.”

“And Sean? Breathe. It’s gonna be okay.”

It’s only now that Sean realizes he’s been hyperventilating. He tries to slow his breathing and return his pulse to a steady beat.

“I’ll see you in a few.”

Sean only nods—a gesture he only realizes after he’s hung up that Lyla can’t see—and paces the room. Once his breathing has evened out, and he’s wiped the stray tears from his eyes, he steps out of his room and back into the living room.

Daniel is back on the couch, watching that  _ Scary Godmother _ Halloween cartoon on TV that Sean always thought was creepy. He looks over the back of the couch when Sean walks in. “Is he on his way?”

Sean swallows. He can’t tell Daniel that Dad is missing. He would _ freak _ . He doesn’t want to lie but…

“No, sorry,  _ enano _ . He’s...he had to work late again tonight.”

Sean tries not to feel his heart break when Daniel’s face falls. It’s for his own good. “Oh.”

“But...uh…” Sean pulls at his fingers. “He said I should take you. Yeah, me and Lyla, we’ll go with you.”

His eyes light up. “Really?!” He jumps up off the couch and runs over to give Sean a hug. “Thanks, big brother.”

Sean bites back a shiver, feeling the dread boil up in his stomach again. “Yeah. No problem.” 


	2. Here, But Now They're Gone

“Hey! There’s my future undead husband!” says Lyla, opening her arms for Daniel’s hug as she walks in. While Daniel’s face is buried in her stomach, she and Sean shoot each other cursory unsettled glances, before slapping back on their fake smiles. “Cool costume!”

Daniel releases the hug. “Thanks! I did it myself! I made the zombie blood from corn syrup and red stuff! And the shirt is an old one I cut up all by myself!”

“Very cool, little dude! You ready for some candy?” Lyla leans down to ruffle his hair, and he beams up at her.

“Yeah! Yeahyeahyeah!” The kid is practically jumping up and down with excitement. On any other day, this would be adorable. Well, it still is, but Sean just has other things on his mind today.

Daniel blazes on ahead once they’re outside, and Sean and Lyla hang back to talk about the situation. Sean still keeps his eyes firmly planted on Daniel the entire time, even while talking, because he’s going to make _damn_ sure he doesn’t lose his _entire_ family today.

“His car wasn’t in the driveway,” Sean explains. “I checked when we were leaving. He hasn’t been home at all since yesterday. Unless he got home really late and left really early. There was probably only a six or seven hour gap between me going to bed and waking up for school.”

“And you don’t think he’s just still at work?”

Sean shakes his head. “He would have told us if he was staying late. Something’s wrong, Lyla, I can feel it.”

Lyla takes his hand and squeezes. “We’ll find him, okay?” she says, a comforting smile in her voice.

He squeezes back. “Thanks.”

“So what do you want to do? Go to the police? File a missing persons report?”

Sean scoffs. “Yeah. I’m sure the missing working-class Mexican is the cops’ top priority.”

“Well, what else can we do? You want to go all Nancy Drew? Do you really think we could do a better job than the police?”

“I dunno. Maybe. But what other choice do we have.”

Lyla looks him over for a second, and Sean catches her frown out of the corner of his eye. She sighs. “So what’s the plan?”

Sean smiles, despite himself. He loves that Lyla is a ride-or-die kinda bitch. “I was thinking we could go down to his shop, see if there are any clues.”

 _Clues_ is what he’s hoping for, at least. They may find nothing, and be right back at square one.

Or they may find something much, much worse.

Lyla nods. “Okay, so tomorrow after school, we can—”

“School? Dude, really? My…” He lowers his voice, remembering to keep quiet from Daniel. “My fucking dad is missing. I can’t go to school. What if he’s hurt, or in danger? What if by the time school gets out, he’s already—”

He gulps. He can’t even finish that sentence. It’s not something he has any desire to think about. Ever.

“We don’t know anything yet, Sean. There’s no reason to believe he’s in any immediate danger. We’ll go right after school, and if we can’t find anything, we’ll go to the police, okay?”

Sean bites his lip. The last thing he wants to do is put his dad’s fate in the hands of some pig, but Lyla’s insistent. “Fine. After school, but no police.”

“Sean…”

“Alright, we’ll call the police. But only if we don’t find anything.”

Lyla nods. “Sounds like a plan.”

# # #

School is hell. Obviously, Sean couldn’t sleep a wink last night. He almost went against Lyla’s wishes and went down to the auto shop after putting Daniel to bed. But Sean’s not stupid. He doesn’t have a key to the auto shop anyway, so he would be some lone brown kid trying to break into a building in the dead of night. Even if he doesn’t get caught by the police, there’s no telling what—or who—he might find there. No, it’s just a better idea to go during the day.

Sean can’t honestly say he remembers a thing about school today, not even lunch. He goes through the morning in a daze, and by afternoon, he’s starting to get restless. Ms. Henson tells him three times in seventh period to stop clicking his pencil. The lead has snapped twice. Sean didn’t even realize he _was_ clicking his pencil.

“Dude, are you okay?” Eric whispers to him from the desk beside his.

Sean just nods. He trusts Eric, but he can’t say anything yet. Not until he knows more.

“You’re jittery as hell. You gotta take a whiz or something?”

“Yeah, sure.” Anything to shut him up. Sorry, Eric. He just can’t talk right now. Too much on his mind.

“I’m sure Ms. Henson will let you go if you ask.”

“It’s fine. Class is almost over.”

Ms. Henson shushes them, and Eric leans back in his own seat, mercifully leaving Sean to his own thoughts.

 _Finally_ , the bell rings, and Sean bolts over to Lyla’s locker, not even bothering to stop at his own. He barely brought his stuff to class anyway, so he just shoves all his books in his backpack and leaves. Lyla isn’t there yet. He dances on his heels anxiously, waiting for her. Oh God, what if she got kidnapped, too? What if everyone Sean has ever loved is getting swiped? Will he go to pick Daniel up, only to find that he’s been taken too?

But his worries are uncalled for, because just a second later, Lyla rounds the corner and makes her way down the hall. Sean deflates.

At Sean’s request, Lyla drives over to the elementary school to pick up Daniel. He’ll be damned if he lets something happen to him on the bus.

“Why isn’t Dad picking me up?” he asks, eyeing them suspiciously, once the initial excitement of seeing Lyla again has worn off.

“He, uh...he’s hanging out with Sam, from work.”

“Oh. Okay…”

He doesn’t sound too convinced.

Sean sweats.

Once Daniel is dropped off and inside, Lyla drives over to the auto shop. The parking lot is mostly empty, save for two cars—a green station wagon he doesn’t recognize, parked far enough away from the shop that it’s fairly likely they just parked here to hit up the grocery store across the street, and a 1999 Chevy Suburban. Dad’s.

“Lyla, that’s my dad’s car,” he points out as they pull in. Sean’s seatbelt is off before Lyla has even finished parking, and he bolts over to the car at speeds typically only reserved for his track meets.

Lyla catches up to him as he’s peering into the window, looking for something—anything—that could lead him to Dad. Signs of a struggle, a smoking gun, he’ll take anything at this point, just to get some answers.

But...there’s nothing. Everything in the car seems in its place—the coffee tumbler with the cheesy Spider-Man design in the cupholder, the wooden cross hanging from the rearview mirror, the GPS suctioned to the dashboard. It honestly looks like he up and walked away, and then just...didn’t come back.

Sean steps back from the window and kicks the gravel. “Nothing,” he mutters. Sean jogs over to the driver’s side door. He jiggles the handle, and… “Damn it,” he hisses.

Lyla wraps her arms around him and rubs at the back of his shoulders. “We’ll find him, Sean.”

He shrugs her off. She purses her lips.

“Let’s see if we can get into the shop,” Lyla suggests, guiding Sean away from the car as he fights with his tear ducts.

When Sean tries the front door, he finds it unlocked. He can’t tell if that’s a good sign or not, but it tells them one thing: Dad made it to work. Whether it was today or yesterday, he’s still unsure, but Dad’s the only one with the keys, and there don’t seem to be any signs of forced entry, so he must have gotten here to unlock it.

It’s eerily normal in the garage, like anybody who was here just stepped out on a lunch break. He almost expects Dad to walk in carrying a burrito and ask Sean what he’s doing here. But no, it’s empty, and so it remains.

Dad’s auto shop is pretty small. There’s only enough space to work on one car at a time. A wide, open area lined with shelves of tools has an oil stain in the center, and behind it are Dad’s office, a small sitting area, and the bathrooms. The blinds to the office are drawn shut, but Sean can see the light peeking out from behind them.

So, no sign of Dad. That’s bad. But there are no bloodstains or bodies, so that’s good.

“Sean, check it out.” Lyla’s hand is on the doorknob to the off, and Sean chooses to take the calmness of her voice as a sign that the thing she wants to show him is _not_ his dad’s dead body or anything.

“What is it?” He crosses the room and peeks through the door as Lyla steps inside.

Panic ripples through Sean. Dad’s office is not that big, about the size of Sean’s bedroom, and there isn’t much in it—just a desk, some chairs, a few decorations on bookshelves. None of them are in their place. The desk is askew, chairs overturned, binders and papers strewn haphazardly across the floor.

“Oh my God,” Sean mutters, covering his mouth with his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh my God oh my God.”

“Hey.” Lyla takes him by the shoulders. “Sean. Deep breaths. Relax.”

“Don’t—” He pulls away. “Don’t tell me to relax, Lyla. This is—”

“We don’t know what this is. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“What else _could_ it mean?!”

Lyla grabs Sean’s face and brings his forehead to hers. “Listen to me, Sean,” she says in a hushed, comforting tone. “We’re going to find him, okay? Just have faith. And _breathe._ We’re not going to get anywhere if you keep panicking.

Purposefully, Sean slows his breathing, focusing on the inhale, the exhale, controlling the tempo to the best of his ability. His heart rate begins to subside. How is Lyla so fucking good at this? How is she so calm? “You’re right,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Let's look around,” Lyla says, letting go and patting Sean on the cheeks. “See what we can find.”

They don’t find much. In fact, they spend most of the remaining daylight hours picking up. Or, Sean does anyway. He moves the desk back into alignment and starts picking up the papers—invoices from past clients—and arranging them into neat little piles on the desk. Dad’ll have to sort through them, but at least they’re no longer cluttering up the floor. When Dad gets back, when they find him—yes, _when_ , not _if_ —Sean wants him to be able to walk into an office that doesn’t look like a tornado hit it.

He gathers up the last bit of papers and starts straightening them out, when he notices something out of the corner of his eye. From where he just picked up the stack he now holds is a small, dark red stain on the rug.

His breath hitches. Lyla notices, and looks up from her spot at the desk, where she had been searching through the drawers. “What is it?” she asks, getting up to see what Sean is looking at. Her eyes grow dim as she notices, and she gasps. “It’s…”

“It’s blood, Lyla,” Sean croaks.

“W-we don’t know that it’s his. And...look, Sean there’s so little of it. If it were...if it were fatal, you’d think there’d be more of it, right?”

Sean takes a deep breath. “You’re right,” he says, more for himself than anything. Lyla’s right. She _has_ to be, because the alternative is…

Lyla rubs Sean’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze before getting back up and returning to the desk. “Does your dad have, like, a schedule or appointment log? Maybe if we can retrace his steps, find out what clients he was meeting, we can learn more.”

“Good idea.” Sean joins Lyla at the desk, and bends down to turn the PC on. It glows to life and dad’s lock screen, a picture of Sean and Daniel that makes Sean’s heart hurt, appears.

“Do you know his password?” Lyla asks.

Sean shrugs. “He’s never told me, but I could probably guess it.”

Lyla gets up to allow Sean the chair, and his fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment. What would Dad’s password be? Dad’s a sentimental guy, a family man, so maybe it has something to do with him and Daniel?

He tries his birthday—081500. Nothing.

He tries Daniel’s—041107. _Nada._

He tries both of them together—081500041107. Denied.

Sean places a finger to his chin as he thinks. “Maybe there’s some kind of clue somewhere?” Lyla suggests. “Or a note with it written down?”

“Nah. Dad’s not dumb enough to just leave his password lying around. He learned that lesson years ago when I managed to get on the computer without permission and ended up giving the computer a virus. And I don’t think he’s the type to leave hints for his teenage son to find.” 

“Fair enough.”

Every website Sean has ever been on always says a good password is at least 8 characters, with at least one number and one capital letter. Keeping the birthday theme—it just feels right, though Sean has no idea why—maybe he would try to mix in letters instead of just numbers.

Let’s try...S081500D041107.

“Damn it…” Sean curses as the Incorrect Password message beeps at him. One more try and he’s locked out for ten minutes. He sits back, thinking. Lyla begins perusing the bookshelves, looking for clues.

Sean’s eyes scan the room for anything that might give him an idea. Eventually, they land on a paper calendar tacked to the wall. Thinking it can’t hurt, he pushes the chair back and grabs the calendar from the wall, flipping back to August.

Right there on the 15th, circled twice in red ink is Dad’s handwriting: “Seanie’s bday.” It almost makes him cry, thinking about his dad, smiling to himself as he writes down the reminder, thinking about what presents he’s going to give. But he chokes back his tears, biting his lip to steady himself. Nothing here points towards a password, so he flips to April and sees the same circled handwriting read, “Dan’s bday.”

Still no clue. Figures, Dad wouldn’t hide his password in a calendar. This isn’t a video game or a movie. And Dad isn’t a criminal mastermind or anything. He didn’t have time to plan ahead if he’d been taken.

But Sean notices something. The calendar has kind of a weird design, with each page having a two-letter abbreviation above the full month name, one letter on either side of the tack hole. April’s is AP, which makes sense, and he flips back to August. AU. Duh. (Out of pure curiosity, he flips to June and July and sees they’re JN and JL respectively.)

Seeing this gives him an idea. Dad would try to alternate letters and numbers to make it harder to guess—which, like, mission fucking accomplished. He sits back down at the desk and tries the first thing that pops into his mind. The timer has expired now, and he has five more password attempts, so he tries a couple variations:

A15U00A11P07

A15u00A11p07

a15U00a11P07

A15u00a11P07

The screen flashes, and a new message pops up. _WELCOME._

“Holy shit, I did it.” Sean laughs weakly to himself. “I actually did it.”

Luckily, Dad has his computer synced with his Google Calendar, and as soon as they sign in, a bunch of reminders for appointments pop up in the corner of the screen. Sean clicks one of them, and it takes him to the full calendar page.

“Hey look,” Sean says, ushering Lyla back over from the bookshelves. “Dad had an appointment with a new client yesterday.” He points to an event marked on the calendar that reads: _NEW CLIENT! May Willoughby._

“What kinda name is May Willoughby?” Lyla asks. “Sounds fake as hell to me.”

“ _May-_ be.”

“I’m going to elect to ignore that pun due to the circumstances, but just know that I will never forgive you for that atrocity. Do you think this _May_ person has something to do with your dad’s disappearance?”

“I don’t know,” Sean says, shaking his head. “But there’s a phone number listed. Maybe we could call and find out.”

Lyla purses her lips. “I don’t know, Sean. They could be dangerous.”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll *67 them.” Sean pulls out his phone and dials the number, remembering to block his own number from the caller ID. Lyla shrugs and pulls up a chair next to him as Sean puts the phone on speaker.

“They probably won’t even answer a blocked number,” Lyla whispers.

Sean shushes her. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and they won’t even check.”

As it turns out, Sean’s got a little bit of luck left in him after all, as the phone clicks, and a young woman’s voice answers. “Hello?”

“Hi, um—” Sean clears his throat, and throws his voice to sound deeper than it actually is. “Hi, is this May Willoughby?”

Lyla rolls her eyes at him.

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is, um...Sam. From the Diaz Repair shop. I work with Esteban and was calling to follow-up on your appointment from yesterday.”

“Oh! Yes, to reschedule?”

“Uh…” Sean looks over to Lyla, who shrugs. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t in yesterday and Da—Esteban never, uh, told me you had to cancel.”

“Oh, that wasn’t you in the office then? Yes. I showed up for my appointment, on time I might add, but Mr. Diaz turned me away, said something had come up. He was very polite about the whole thing, but it was a tad annoying, since I had to wake up early to get there.”

“I’m terribly sorry about that, ma’am. I’ll be sure to talk with Mr. Diaz about this. I’ll have him call you back as soon as he’s free.”

“Oh, could you just put me in for sometime this week? I’d really like to have my heat fixed before it starts getting too cold.”

“Uh...Sure, how’s, um—” Sean checks Dad’s calendar. “Friday at 11am?”

“Perfect. Thank you so much!”

“Absolutely. Not a problem. You have a great day.”

Sean hangs up the phone, breathing a sigh of relief. He hates talking on the phone even when he’s _not_ trying to sound twenty years older than he actually is. His fingers find his throat, and he massages his vocal cords.

“I am _stunned_ that she bought that,” Lyla says, chuckling. “That may be the worst voice I’ve ever heard you try. And yesterday you tried to sound like Blackbeard.”

“Shut up,” Sean laughs. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“I guess. So, now what?”

“Well, Willoughby confirmed that my dad _was_ here yesterday morning for that appointment. So I guess we can place his last known location as here at 7am.”

“How can we be sure, though? They were a new client, so she wouldn’t necessarily know if it was really your dad.”

“I guess that’s true,” Sean says. “I kinda doubt it, though. My dad’s a hard guy to impersonate. Everybody knows him around here, y’know? Only Latino mechanic in the area.”

“That makes sense.” Lyla looks closer at the calendar. “It’s not like your dad to miss an appointment like that.”

“He’s done it before when Daniel and I had to come home sick from school, but neither of us were even _at_ school yesterday at 7. And didn’t she say somebody else was here with him? She said, ‘that wasn’t you in the office.’”

“Your dad doesn’t work with anyone else?”

Sean shakes his head. “Not these days. I used to help out after school before I started at Z-mart, but Sam has been out while his leg heals. So it’s mainly been just him.”

“Then who was here with him?”

Sean takes a deep, deep breath, holds it in, and then slowly, lets it all out.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But we need to find out.”


	3. Love of Two is One

With nothing else to go on, Sean and Lyla search through Dad’s work computer. They have no idea what they’re looking for—just something that might lead this to the mystery person (or people) that were in Dad’s office with him, that were important enough to turn away a new client.

Looking through his files yields no results—just a bunch of invoices, the same ones that were scattered around the office. Digital backups. His internet history doesn’t lead to much, either. Just his calendar, the occasional trip to Facebook, and a couple of random Google searches for car parts.

Sean is just about to give up and look elsewhere, when the front door to the auto shop chimes as somebody walks in. Sean and Lyla both freeze.

“Hello?” the person outside the office calls out. “Esteban? You here?”

“Wait, I recognize that voice,” Sean whispers, then he calls out, “Sam?”

Moments later the office door opens and in limps a tall, stocky man with a receding hairline and the tackiest yellow flannel shirt Sean has ever seen. He looks surprised when he catches sight of Sean and Lyla. “Oh! I thought you were your dad. You’re starting to sound just like him.”

Sean tries not to swell with pride at that statement. There’s no time for that.

“Where is Esteban, anyway?” Sam says, glancing around the office. “I saw his car out back, so I assumed…”

Sean shoots Lyla a glance, and they have an entire conversation without words. A conversation of,  _ should we tell him? _

Lyla clearly thinks they should, judging by the disapproving looks she’s giving him, but Sean has known Sam for almost ten whole years now. He trusts him. He gives Lyla an encouraging glance and nods.

“We don’t know,” Sean says, before Lyla can stop him. “He never came home last night.”

Sam’s face widens. “He didn’t? But I talked to him just last night.”

Lyla and Sean exchange another glance. “When?” she asks.

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know, around dinnertime, maybe? He told me to swing by today if I could.”

“What for?” says Sean.

“Oh, I’d been asking about worker’s comp for my injury. He said he’d found the forms and could give them to me tomorrow, er, today.”

“And you said this was around dinner time?” Lyla says.

Sam nods.

Sean turns to Lyla with a quizzical look. “So, if he was still around to make calls…”

“Then what was going on that morning?”

So the last time Dad was  _ seen _ was yesterday at 7AM, but the last anyone’s heard of him was yesterday evening. That’s almost 12 hours of missing time. And where had Dad made the call from? Was he back in the office by then? Did he ever leave? What was he doing all that time, if not working?

“What do you mean, that morning?” Sam asks.

Lyla subtly shakes her head, but Sean fills him in on everything they know so far.

“Damn, check out you super-sleuths,” Sam laughs. “That’s some impressive investigative work, kids.”

“You don’t sound concerned,” Sean says warily.

Sam shrugs. “Listen, your dad is the strongest man I know. He could bounce back from death itself, if it meant protecting you and your brother.”

“I guess.” That doesn’t help him right now, though. That doesn’t bring him any closer to finding Dad. “Do you know anything that could help us find him?”

Sam thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he says. “If his car is still here, that must mean he either left on foot or with someone else.”

“Like the person May Willoughby saw in the office with him yesterday,” Sean adds.

“But we don’t know anything about them,” Lyla says. “They’re probably a man if she thought that ‘Sam’ was the one he was with, but that doesn’t narrow anything down.”

“Maybe there’s something in his car that could give you some sort of clue?”

Sean shakes his head. “We tried to get in. It’s locked.”

“Well…” Lyla says. But she trails off, and Sean and Sam both turn to look at her.

“What?” Sean asks.

“We could always...break in?”

She phrases it like a question. But it’s not. And it’s  _ out _ of the question. “No way,” Sean says. “The only thing Dad loves as much as me and Daniel is that car. He jokes that it’s his firstborn son. He would  _ kill  _ me if we broke into it.”

“Sean, we might not have any other choice.”

Sam puts a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “She may be right, son. I’m sure your dad will understand, if it helps lead us to him.”

Sean groans, but they have a point. He gives in, and they head outside.

# # #

Sean stares at the stone in his hand, turning it over as he contemplates the consequences of what he’s about to do.  _ It will help us find him _ , he reminds himself, and that thought is enough to drive him forward. He braces himself, holding his breath and squeezing his eyes shut, bracing himself as he slams the rock into the driver’s side window. The glass shatters and falls to the seat with a loud  _ crash! _

Sean winces, preparing for...something—an alarm, a police siren, a neighbor calling for help. But no, things are startlingly silent, as if the smash of the window drained the world of all noise like a black hole.

His breathing returns to him as Lyla reaches inside and unlocks the door. She brushes the shards of broken glass off the seat and sits down. The interior light comes on with the open door, but in the early November evening darkness, it’s not nearly enough. Both Sam and Sean whip out their phones and turn on the flashlights.

Lyla digs around, picking up receipts and napkins, finding CDs under the seats, the owner’s manual in the glove box.

“Anything?” Sean asks. “You think any of this can lead us to Dad?”

“I don’t know, Sean, I—oh!” She reaches down and grabs one of the receipts that was wedged in the cupholder. “Look.” She hands Sean the small slip of paper. It’s a receipt for a family-owned diner a few miles down the road. Dad has taken Sean and Daniel there a couple times because he really likes their reuben. The receipt is from yesterday at 5:55PM.

“So he went out to dinner, I don’t—”

Lyla interrupts him. “Look at what he bought.”

Sean takes another look at the paper. Two burgers. Two Cokes. Two slices of pie. “He was there with someone else,” he deduces.

Lyla nods. “Somebody there might have seen him. They might be able to identify the other person he was with.”

“Lyla, you are awesome,” he says, throwing her arms around her as she straightens out of the car, and squeezes her tightly.

“I know.”

They break their hug and Sean is left to look at the broken window, feeling a pang of guilt in his chest. “Hey, hang on a second,” he says, and opens the door to the car. He shuffles around until he comes across a stack of old newspapers conveniently piled under the backseat, probably leftover from that papier-mâché project Daniel did last week. Sean grabs them and steps back outside. “Do you guys have any tape or something so we can at least block the window?”

“Um,” Lyla says. “I don’t think that’s really gonna do much, but sure. I think I have some in my backpack.”

Lyla retreats to her car and returns moments later with a roll of scotch tape, and helps Sean fasten a couple layers of newspaper over the window. Fuck, the replacement for this is totally coming out of Sean’s paycheck.

When they’re done, Sam offers to give them a ride, but Lyla says she’d rather take her own car.

“I don’t want to just leave it in the parking lot here,” she says.

“Still, at least let me buy you kids dinner while we’re there.”

“We’re not going for food, Sam. We’re going to find out more about my dad,” Sean says, but his stomach betrays him, letting out a loud, gurgling growl. Oh yeah, he hasn’t eaten anything all day. He couldn’t. No appetite.

Sam chuckles and ruffles Sean’s hair, an act that makes him feel simultaneously infantilized but also warm and cared for. “Come on. I’ll meet you kids there.”

“Okay. Thanks Sam,” Sean says, smoothing out his hair.

Usually Sean hates being treated like a kid, when he’s  _ practically _ a grown-ass adult. But there’s something comforting about it right now, especially with Sam, who’s been almost like an uncle to him ever since they moved into their house on Lewis Avenue. 

In the car, Lyla has a different opinion. “Are you sure we can trust him, Sean?”

“What? What makes you say that?”

“Your dad is supposedly his best friend, right? And his boss? Yet he doesn’t seem worried at all. Almost like he knows something.”

Sean shrugs. “People deal with shock in a buncha different ways, I guess. He might still be in denial.”

Lyla turns on her turn signal as she approaches the exit to the parking lot. “I guess. Just don’t let your guard down.”

# # #

When they get to the diner, there’s only a few customers. They must have just missed the dinner rush. Sam is already here, and he waves them over to his booth as they step inside.

Sean spends some time looking at the menu, but he still doesn’t really have much of an appetite, despite the protests of his empty stomach. He knows he should eat something, but looking at pictures of food when you’re  _ not _ hungry really is enough to make someone ralph.

Why do people call vomiting “ralphing” anyway? What did poor Ralph ever do to deserve such libel?

Lyla must notice how green he probably looks, because she puts a hand on his back and gently rubs circles over it. Sean sucks in his breath, because this is exactly what Dad used to do when Sean was sick. This one time in second grade, Sean got a really bad stomach bug, and was throwing up for days. But whenever he was feeling nauseated, Dad would come into his room with a bowl of hot soup and a stack of crackers, which he would leave on the desk as he took a seat next to a miserable Sean on the bed and gently caressed his back.

And somehow, it always worked. It always made the nausea fade. Sean’s not sure if there’s actual science behind it, or if it’s just a placebo, but it’s having the same effect now.

“Thanks,” he whispers. Lyla just shrugs and smiles.

With the wave of nausea subsiding, Sean’s appetite starts growing, and suddenly,  _ everything _ is looking good.

When the waitress approaches their table, she flashes a shocked expression, likely at the fact that this old white dude is dining in with two teenagers that, well, don’t exactly look related to him. Sean wants to tell her to mind her own business, but the look is brief, and she shakes it off almost immediately.

“What can I get y’all to drink?” she says.

He doesn’t want anything to drink, he wants to ask her about Dad. But his stomach keeps gurgling whenever he thinks about bringing it up, so he decides to wait until after dinner.

Sean orders a gigantic bacon cheeseburger, and steals some of Lyla’s Taco Tuesday Special. By the time he’s cleared his plate, his stomach is finally calmed down, and it feels almost like a fog has been lifted. He no longer feels jittery and nervous, even when thinking about how to find his dad. He can think a little clearer now.

“Thanks, Sam,” he says.

“Yeah, thanks,” Lyla adds.

Sam waves them off. “It’s no big deal. You’re family.”

“Still.” Sean wipes his mouth with a napkin and downs the rest of the Coke. “I really needed this.”

“Me too,” Lyla admits. “Now, how do we go about asking about Mr. Diaz?”

Sean pulls out his phone and turns on the display. The battery is getting kind of low, but it should hold for a few more minutes at least. He opens his camera roll and scrolls back, looking for the picture of him, Dad, and Daniel that Lyla took of them last Christmas. Then, when the waitress returns to give Sam the bill, Sean tries to get her attention.

“Uh...excuse me,” he says, and clears his throat. “But have you seen this man here recently?” He points to Dad in the photo.

The waitress leans in to get a better look, then glances over at Sean, like she recognizes him in the picture and is putting two and two together.

“Can’t say that I have. Sorry, kid.”

_ No. _ Sean deflates. “But…” They can’t have come here for nothing.

Lyla saves him from his stammering. “We found a receipt in his car dated yesterday evening. He ordered two burgers, two drinks, and two pies. We think he may have been here with someone else?”

The waitress looks shocked. “Um...I wasn’t working yesterday, but...I think Cheryl was? Let me go find her.”

Their conversation lasted long enough that Sam was able to pull out his credit card, so the waitress takes it with her as she retreats into the kitchen to find this “Cheryl.” A few moments later, she returns, followed by an older woman with bright orange-red air. The waitress points at Sean’s table. Cheryl nods and stars heading their way.

“What can I help ya with, folks?”

Her voice is a bit deeper than Sean expected, and it has a slight hardness to it, like some sort of East-coast accent, probably Jersey.

“Um,” Sean says. Off to a great start here. “We’re looking for this guy here.” Sean shows her the photo. “We found a receipt that suggests he was here last night? Potentially with someone else?”

“Yeah, he looks familiar. Came here with some guy, gray hair, well-dressed, looked kinda stressed out.”

“He did, or the guy he was with?” Lyla asks.

“Both, actually. But the other guy was definitely more stressed. Kept looking over his shoulder, wiping sweat off his brow.”

“Can you think of who that might be, Sean?” Lyla asks him.

Sean shakes his head. “Not anyone I can think of. None of Dad’s drinking buddies have gray hair. At least, not enough that it’d be the first thing somebody notices about them.” He turns to Cheryl. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem kid,” Cheryl says. “Hope you find him.”

“Thanks.” Sean does, too.

“So what do we do now?”

Sean sighs, defeated. “I don’t know. I thought coming here would give us some leads, and it kinda did, but...I just don’t know what else we can do.”

Lyla puts her arm around Sean’s shoulder and squeezes gently. Sean gives a weak smile back. But really, what else is there to do? He has no idea who this mysterious gray-haired man is, but he’s the last one who saw Dad. He has to know something, but how do they go about finding him?”

Interrupting his thoughts, Sean’s phone starts to buzz in his hand. Startled, he looks at the screen, half-expecting the low battery notification, or for it to be shutting itself off, but it keeps buzzing, and his contact shows that it’s their home phone number.

_ Daniel _ , he thinks. He picks up the phone without hesitation. “Hello?”

“Sean? When are you coming home?”

He looks over at Lyla from the corner of his eyes. There’s nothing else really to do, but they can’t give up, can they? Should they just go home? Call the police like Lyla suggested? “I’m not sure. Why? Is everything alright?”

“I think so. But Dad still isn’t home and some man just came and knocked on the door. And I didn’t open it ‘cause I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but he was asking about Dad and—”

“Hold on,” Sean interrupts. “When was this?”

“Just now. I called you right away. Well, I tried calling Dad first but he didn’t answer. I’m starting to get scared, Sean.”

“It’s okay, Daniel. Is...is he still there?”

Lyla perks up.

“I don’t think so. He walked away, but I don’t know where he went. Are you coming home soon?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Sean says, stacking his plates and grabbing his coat from his seat and standing up. “We’ll be home soon.”

“What’s going on?” Lyla asks as Sean hangs up and stuffs his phone in his jeans pocket, then slides his arms through his coat sleeves.

Sean shrugs the coat on over his shoulders and starts heading towards the door. “Daniel may be in danger. We need to get home now.”


	4. Come the Last Night of Sadness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! At first it just needed a little extra time to finish up, but then all the election stuff happened and some other stuff in my personal life and I just did not have the mental capacity to keep working on this haha. So this chapter might be just a little rough but it's here! And the fifth and (hopefully) final chapter should be out soon. I hope. I still need to write it so we'll see.

As Lyla pulls into the Diaz’s driveway and puts the car in park, Sean starts to open the door. He wants to rush in and make sure Daniel is safe. He  _ needs _ to be safe. He has to be. But Lyla grabs his arm.

“What’s the plan?” she says. “What if he’s still here, watching us? Do you think he’d ambush us? What if he rushes us while we’re trying to get inside?”

“I don’t know,” says Sean, breath shaky. “I think if he wanted to hurt us, he’d have broken in already, but Daniel seemed fine on the phone, so…”

Lyla nods, and cautiously gets out of the car. Sean follows, and Lyla keeps watch while he unlocks the front door.

“Daniel?” Sean calls as he enters his living room. “It’s me!”

It already feels like it’s been years since he’s seen his own home. And it’s different without Dad. Colder, emptier. The house is quiet, almost eerily so. For a brief, bone-chilling moment, there’s no response from Daniel, and Sean is paralyzed with the fear that he’s too late. He shouldn’t have left him alone!

But his fears are quickly snuffed out by the sound of pattering feet against the floor, and soon enough, Daniel is racing towards him from his bedroom, and tackles him so hard he almost stumbles backwards.

“Sean!” he cries into Sean’s chest, tightening his grip around him.

“Hey,  _ enano _ ,” Sean sighs gently, relief flooding through him. He rubs his brother’s back in comfort. “You okay?”

Daniel pulls back, eyes puffy, and nods.

“Did that man ever come back?” Sean asks.

Daniel shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. I think he went home.”

“Um, guys?” Lyla says, looking out the window of the outer door that she had just closed behind her. “I think he’s still here.”

“What?” Sean joins her at the door to see, under the light of a street lamp, a man with gray hair stalking towards the house. Sean stifles a gasp, and he closes the front door quickly, locking and chaining it behind him. He turns to Daniel. “Go make sure the garage door is locked.”

Daniel nods, and rushes downstairs, and Sean tries not to notice that this may be the first time he has ever done what Sean asked of him without protesting. Moments later, he scurries up the stairs and gives Sean a thumbs-up.

There’s a knock at the door. Everybody jumps.

“Hello?” a voice calls from the other side. “Esteban?”

Nobody moves, all three of them are frozen in place, like they’ve been caught in Medusa’s glare.

“I know somebody’s home. I saw the car pull up and I see the lights on inside. Open up, please.”

_ Shit _ . Sean curses under his breath. They made themselves a target. And they wouldn’t even be in this mess if Sean had just taken Daniel with him in the first place.

The stranger is persistent. Sean had hoped that if they just stayed quiet long enough, he would give up. But he just keeps knocking.

“Wh-what do you want?” Sean chokes out.

“Just to talk. Is your dad there?”

Sean looks over at Lyla.

“If he doesn’t know that your dad is missing, then he’s probably not—”

“Missing?!” Daniel whispers.

“We’ll fill you in later,” Sean whispers back. Then he turns back to Lyla. “He could be playing dumb. Or lying. We don’t know this guy.”

“I’m an old friend of your dad’s, if that helps.”

“He says he knows Dad!” Daniel repeats. “We can trust him!”

Sean pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dude! When all this is over, remind me to make you watch that  _ Too Smart For Strangers _ VHS that scarred me for life as a kid.”

“I know you’re scared,” the stranger says. “You’re smart not to open the door for me. We can talk here if you’d like. I just need to talk to your dad.”

“Why?” Sean demands.

“It’s...business.”

“The garage is open from 9 to 5.”

“Not...that kind of business.”

Sean rolls his eyes. “Who are you? What do you need to say to my dad?”

“Maybe we should just tell him he’s missing, Sean,” Daniel suggests. “Maybe he can help, or at least he might go away.”

“And let him know that we’re just three defenseless kids home alone? I don’t think so,” Sean hisses back.

“Listen, can you just tell your dad that Marc Walden came by to see him?”

Sean doesn’t say anything, and after a while this Marc person seems to take the hint, and Sean can hear his footsteps receding. With each step, Sean can breathe just a little bit easier.

As soon as the oppressive atmosphere slinks away, Sean is met with a smack on the arm from Daniel. “Why didn’t you tell me Dad was missing?” he whines.

“Ow!” Sean rubs his arm. The kid has more strength than he knows. “I didn’t want to worry you,  _ enano. _ ”

“I’ve been worried all day anyway! At least I’d have known what was going on. I’m not a baby anymore, Sean! You don’t gotta protect me.”

“Daniel…” Sean bends down and puts his hands on  _ enano _ ’s shoulders, looking at him square in the eye. “You’re my little brother. I will  _ always _ protect you. Even when we’re both in our fifties. I’ll protect you. Because you’re my brother and I love you, okay?”

Daniel pouts. “Whatever.”

“But you’re right. I shouldn’t have lied.” He pulls an apprehensive Daniel into a hug. “No more lies from now on, okay? I promise.”

Daniel cracks a smile. “Okay.”

# # #

Well, a google search turns up nothing relating to Marc Walden, besides a couple Facebook pages and a football coach named Marc Zimmerman from Walden University. So once again, they are back at square one. Sean has told Daniel everything—only leaving out the bloodstain on the office rug—while they search the web.  _ Enano _ is handling it a lot better than Sean would have thought. He’s attentive, and seems worried, but not outright scared. Maybe a little scared, but that’s natural.

Sean would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared shitless, himself.

“What do we do now?” Sean asks, shutting his laptop and swiveling around in his chair.

“Do you think Sam might know something about this Walden guy?” Lyla suggests. “He’s pretty close with your dad.”

Sean nods. “Yeah, good thinking.” He pulls his phone from the charging cable and turns it back on. It died on the way home, but it’s now at more or less full charge. As it powers on, a voice mail notification pops up, and one missed call from…

“Dad!” Sean exclaims, jumping out of his seat.

Lyla perks up. “What?”

Daniel looks up from the toy he’s been staring at. “Dad?”

“He...he called while my phone was charging.” Sean clenches his fist. “I could have talked to him, I...I should have charged my phone sooner.”

“Did he leave a message?” Lyla asks.

Sean nods, and pulls up his voicemail, sets it to speaker, and hits play.

The message starts with some shuffling and indistinct voices. Then, finally, it steadies and Sean can make out a voice, clear and strong. Dad’s voice.

“How long do you plan on keeping me here?” he says.

Another voice responds. He speaks with a slight accent that Sean can’t really place. It’s different from Dad’s though, so definitely not Mexican. Maybe French? Italian? Greek? Somewhere in Europe.

“As long as it takes to get your partner to show up.”

Dad sighs. “He’s not...Marc Walden is not my partner. Not anymore.”

“Marc was Dad’s...partner?” Sean mutters under his breath. Lyla shushes him.

“It matters not,” says a third voice, a woman’s voice, with a different accent than the other guys. Smoother, maybe Swedish? “Marc Walden cares a great deal for his...sidekicks. He will come for you.”

“He does not even know I am missing!” Dad shouts. “What sort of imbeciles set a trap without luring the prey?”

“None of this would have happened if you’d just  _ given us the key _ ,” spats the man.

“I told you, I have no idea what—”

There’s a loud slam, and Sean’s heart stops briefly. “You know  _ damn _ well which key. You stole it from us nearly two decades ago!”

Dad is quiet for a second, and Sean is worried that something’s happened to him, or that the message has ended, but then Dad says, “Ohhh.  _ This _ key. It’s hardly stealing if it never belonged to you in the first place.”

“That key was ours!” the woman snaps. “We won it fair and square, and you and your partner took it from us!”

“Look, I’ve told you, he’s…” Dad sighs. “I’ve left those years behind me. I’m a family man now, a mechanic. Nothing more. No more adventures for me, besides being a single parent to two rowdy boys.” He laughs to himself, half-nervously. “What do you plan to do with me once you get what you want?”

“As we have said, we will not harm you,” says the woman. “All we want is the key. Once you or your partner—”

“Not my—”

“—hands it over to us, you will be free to go.”

“And what makes you think Marc has it?”

“Marc Walden is a sentimental man,” says the man’s voice. “He would not so easily part with such an...important item to him.”

“Unless he gave it to a trusted ally and confidant,” Dad says. Sean can practically hear him winking at the phone.

“You lie! You said you know nothing of the key’s whereabouts!”

“I’ve said nothing of the sort.”

The woman growls exasperatedly, and Sean hears Dad stifle a chuckle. 

“You’d best cooperate with us, Mr. Diaz,” says the man. “I would hate for our contacts on the police force to...hear of your assault on your poor, defenseless neighbor.”

Dad’s quiet for a moment. And Sean thinks,  _ Assault? What? _

“What are you—” Dad starts. “Oh, I see. You’re going to frame me, is that it? Well, I’ll have you know that I’m an upstanding citizen! I’ve never even had so much as a parking ticket. Do you honestly think that—”

There are footsteps and more shuffling as they continue to talk, but Sean can’t make out what is being said over the feedback, and then the message ends.

For a few minutes, nobody says anything. They’re all too stunned. Sean is, at least. What the hell did he just listen to? Where was Dad? Who were those two other people? What’s all this about a key? And was Dad trying to...to tell him something?

Finally able to think, Sean blinks at the phone in his hand. “I’m gonna call Sam. Maybe he knows something about this.”

# # #

“Marc Walden. Marc Walden…”

Sam repeats the name over and over, like it’ll somehow jog his memory after the fifteenth try.

“Sorry, kid. Can’t say that rings a bell.”

“Damn it,” Sean huffs. “That’s okay. Thanks anyway, Sam.”

“Normally I wouldn’t suggest this, but...desperate times and all. Why don’t you try going through your dad’s things? He might have something that’ll point you towards this Marc guy.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Sean says. He hates the thought of digging around in dad’s room without permission, but...well, Sam’s right. Desperate times.

Sean says good night to Sam and hangs up the phone. The time on the display reads 10:29. God, how did it get so late?

“Okay,  _ enano _ ,” Sean says, swiveling in his chair to face his brother. “Time for bed.”

Daniel looks up from his toys, hurt. “What?! Come on, Sean! I wanna help find Dad, too.”

But Sean just shakes his head. “It’s already late, and you have school tomorrow.”

“You’re really gonna make me go to school while our dad is missing?!” Daniel says.

“I’m hoping we’ll find him by morning.”

Now Lyla shakes her head. “No way, dude. You need to sleep, too.” Sean begins to protest, but she cuts him off. “We have been working at this for over 24 hours, and I  _ know _ you didn’t sleep last night. Sean, you forgot to eat all day. You  _ need _ to sleep. We won’t be able to do much tonight anyway. I can crash here, and first thing in the morning we’ll look through his room.”

“And I can help?” Daniel says, flashing them those pleading eyes Sean could never say no to.

He sighs. “Fine. You can help,  _ enano _ . But bed now.”

“But I’m not even tired!” Daniel bemoans, though the yawn escaping him suggests otherwise.

“Bed.” Sean points in the direction of his room, and Daniel pouts, but he gets up and retreats back into his room.

# # # 

Sean didn’t think he’d actually get any sleep, but apparently overexhaustion is a good motivator, because he finds himself waking up from a dreamless sleep to the sound of his alarm. As he sits up and shuts it off, rubbing the sleepies from his eyes, he notices Lyla is no longer in his room.

Dad, surprisingly, never really had a “no girls” sleepover rule, so Lyla sleeping on his bedroom floor isn’t an uncommon experience. Sean hopes it’s because his dad trusts him enough to know that he and Lyla are just friends, and not because he thinks Sean is gay or anything.

Before Sean even has a chance to stretch, Daniel races into his room. “You’re up! Let’s—”

“Jesus Daniel. Can I have like, two minutes to wake up?”

Daniel frowns. “Sorry.”

Sean stretches out and lets a long sigh escape his throat as his back cracks. “Let me make some coffee, and then we can go searching through Dad’s room, okay?”

“Okay!” Daniel says, and retreats back into the living room. Sean stretches for another moment, grabs his phone, and drags himself into the kitchen.

Daniel and Lyla are sitting on the watching Spongebob like this is just some kind of fucking vacation. Sean shakes the frustrated thoughts from his mind. Blehhhh...Must. Have. Caffeine.

Lyla looks up at him as he enters the room. “Hey I made some coffee. It’s in the kitchen. Still warm.”

“Lyla, you’re a lifesaver,” Sean grunts. He pours himself a cup and finally becomes a real person again as he sips the bitter liquid completely untouched by any sugar or creamer.

He joins the two of them on the couch and finishes the episode with them while he drinks his coffee. Ironically, it’s the one where Gary goes missing and Spongebob goes out to try and find him. Because of course it is. But if the voicemail they got last night is any indication, Dad wasn’t just picked up by some scary grandmother on the street. He’s in for something much worse, it seems.

They need to find him.

The episode ends, and Sean is only about halfway done with his coffee, but he’s awake enough now for his mind to turn to all of the things Dad might be going through right now. What if they’re torturing him to find out where the key is? Sean’s stomach gurgles as he pictures them shaving off pieces of skin or breaking his fingers. He shudders, and stands up suddenly. “Let’s go.”

Lyla and Daniel follow him into Dad’s bedroom, which is unlocked as always, but Sean can’t help but feel like he’s breaking some kind of invisible barrier. He’s promised dad that he would never enter this room. But he has to. So as he steps through the doorway, the barrier fades, and the light flickers on.

Dad’s got a simple room. Just a queen-sized bed in the middle of the back wall, a nightstand on either side, a small desk that usually goes unused. There’s some light exercise equipment for him to keep his “hot dad” status, as Lyla calls it. And on the left wall there’s a walk-in closet and the master bathroom.

“So what are we looking for?” Lyla asks.

“Dunno,” Sean says. “But we’d better find it.”

“Maybe that key they mentioned is here,” Daniel suggests.

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Lyla says.

“Yeah, but where would it be?”

Lyla shrugs.

“Guess we’d better start searching.”

An hour later, Sean, Daniel, and Lyla have gone through basically the entire room to no avail. Daniel looked through the nightstands while Sean inspected the bathroom and Lyla checked the closet. The closet definitely had the most  _ stuff _ in it, which meant that once Sean and Daniel were done, they joined her to help look through it. But there was just  _ so much shit _ in this closet, boxes upon boxes of old files, knick knacks and souvenirs, old photo albums with...all of the pictures of  _ Karen _ . So that’s where they went.

Best not to open this can of worms. He stuffs them back in the box and hides it from Daniel.

“I haven’t seen anything that even remotely looks like a key,” Lyla says.

“Me neither,” says Sean. “Just a bunch of old junk.”

Daniel puts a finger to his chin. “What if it’s not actually a key?”

Sean and Lyla both turn to him. “What do you mean,  _ enano _ ?”

“Well, in  _ Skyrim _ , there was this one dungeon where the key to open the door is this statue thing that you found. It took me  _ forever _ to figure it out. But what if it’s not a  _ key _ key, but something else that  _ acts _ like a key.”

Sean blinks. “That’s...Daniel, that’s actually a really good point.”

Daniel beams. “Told you I could help out!”

With a smile and a small eye-roll, Sean pulls out the box of knick knacks. “Maybe one of these? I thought they were all just useless shit, but maybe one of them is the key?”

“What would it even be a key  _ to,  _ though?” Lyla says. “Keys have to open something, right? Clearly those two people who kidnapped your dad are after whatever it opens. If we can figure out what that even is, maybe that’ll help us figure out what the key is.”

“Ooh! I know! It’s gotta be some kind of treasure! Like a mountain of gold! Or a secret spell to unleash a horde of zombies on the world!”

“Dude! Be serious!” Sean scolds. “This isn’t a game. Our dad is in danger.”

“Okay…”

“Well, treasure is as good a start as any,” Lyla says.

“What kind of treasure would they be looking for?” Sean says. “Like, ‘treasure’ is really vague. And I don’t really know how that would help us determine what the key is.”

Lyla starts digging through the box of old trinkets, pulling out a couple little porcelain dolls that are honestly really kind of ugly, with chipped skin and hair and creepy little smiles. “Take these for example,” she says. “They look like just regular dolls, right? We would normally just discount them from being a key, but what if the ‘treasure’ they’re looking for is some kind of priceless old doll that’s worth millions of dollars. Suddenly, these would make sense. Maybe if you arrange them in a certain order in a certain dollhouse it unlocks a secret compartment with the doll in it?”

“That sounds like something straight out of a movie, dude. I don’t know.”

“Okay, but like, your dad has been kidnapped by a bunch of goons who have a past with your father, who is apparently some kind of Mexican Indiana Jones, yet this is where your suspension of disbelief gets broken?”

“Fair enough.” Sean takes one of the dolls and turns it over in his hand. “I don’t think this is it though. There’s too many of them that all look like part of a set. The way they talked about the key made it sound like there’s only one. Plus—” He turns the doll on its side and shows Lyla the bottom. “They’re totally hollow. If they were some kind of key, they’d probably have some kind of coding or something that would be read by the dollhouse lock, or whatever.”

Lyla nods. “Good point. Now you’re thinking like a detective.”

“But aren’t those made of cement?” Daniel says.

Sean looks over at him. “Cement? What are you talking about?”

“The guy on the phone, he said something about cement, didn’t he? He said that Marc was cemental or something. Doesn’t that mean he’s looking for something made of cement?”

“What?” Sean blinks, mentally replaying the conversation in his head. He listened to it a couple more times after Daniel had left, mostly to go over what had been said, make sure hadn’t missed anything, but also...he just wanted to hear his dad’s voice again. It’s been...so long, it feels like, since he’s talked to his father. In reality, it’s only been a couple days, but it feels like a lifetime. What was it that the guy said that Daniel could be referring to, though? “Wait, do you mean sentimental?”

“Yeah! That was it! What does that word mean, Sean?”

“Um, it means...How do I describe it…?”

“It means that he cares a lot about things with personal value to him,” Lyla explains. “Like that watch that Sean gave you, it has  _ sentimental _ value to you because your brother gave it to you, and it means something more than just how much it costs.”

“Ohhhh. So this Marc guy is...sentimental over the key?”

“Yeah,” Sean says. “That makes sense. So, what do we have in here that could have sentimental value to Marc Walden?”

The three of them continue to search through the boxes, pulling out little decorations and novelties and whoozits and whatzits galore. Nothing is immediately jumping out to Sean as something that could hold sentimental value, but then, he doesn’t know Marc very well, or at all. He’s just kind of going off what might be sentimental to anybody—something that could have been a gift, a memento of somebody important, or perhaps something hand-crafted.

“Those two said that they won the key, right?” Lyla says. Sean nods in confirmation. “So, what do we have here that seems like it could be a prize to be won?”

“Honestly, half of this shit looks like the garbage you’d get at a state fair or something. But that’s...not really what we’re looking for.” 

“What if they won it at an auction?” Lyla posits. “What’s something in here that somebody could have paid a large sum of money for?”

They dig for another moment, but Sean isn’t finding  _ anything _ . “Ugh this is useless!” he says, throwing up his hands. “I wouldn’t pay more than 50 cents for any of this shit at a goddamn garage sale. I don’t even—”

“What about this?” Daniel says. He holds up a small, unassuming figurine of a wolf, perched on a small pedestal. The statue looks like it’s made of bronze, with something carved into the pedestal that Sean can’t make out, because it’s so faded and looks like it’s almost been scratched off.

“Where’d you find that?” Sean asks, as Daniel hands him the figure. He turns it over in his hand, examining it from all sides. He squints at whatever’s etched into the base to see if he can make out what it says. And it might just be because he’s looking for it, but it almost looks like it might say  _ M.W.  _ Marc Walden.

“It was just in the box, I picked it up ‘cause I thought it looked cool. Wolves are my favorite animal.”

Sean can’t help but smile. “Yeah, I know  _ enano _ .” He ruffles Daniel’s hair. “Mine too. But look—” He shows Lyla the statue. “Doesn’t that look like the initials  _ M.W.  _ are carved into the base here? This might be it, dude.”

“Great,” Lyla says, taking the figure and examining it closer herself. “Now what?”

Sean shrugs. “No clue. We have a key, but we have no idea what it opens.”

“If we could find out where they’re holding your father, we might be able to find out.”

“Yeah, but that’s gonna be impossible. I don’t know how to trace a call, especially one that’s already passed. I feel like our only hope of finding them is to get in touch with this Marc guy, but he never left his number or anything for us to contact him.”

“Maybe Dad has his number somewhere?” Daniel suggests.

Sean shakes his head. “I doubt it. They didn’t sound like they were on the best of terms in that phone call. Dad was adamant that Marc wasn’t his partner anymore. It almost sounds like they had a bad breakup or something.”

“I mean, it’s not a bad suggestion,” Lyla says. “Maybe your dad has some old address books lying around with his number?”

“I mean, the two goons mentioned that they stole the key almost 20 years ago. I guess we don’t know how long they continued working together afterwards, but considering I’m sixteen, and I don’t remember Dad going away on long ‘business trips’ where he could go on these death-defying adventures, I’m going to assume it’s been at least that long since they’ve seen each other. The old phone number might not even work, even if we find it.”

Just then, as if on cue, the phone starts to ring. All three of them jump at the suddenness of it.

“What if that’s him?” Daniel says.

“That would be way too convenient,” Sean remarks.

“But not necessarily unprecedented,” Lyla adds. “He did seem pretty insistent on talking to your dad. It makes sense he would call again the next morning to follow-up if your dad never called.”

“I guess,” Sean says, rising to his feet and heading back into the kitchen to grab the phone off the wall. “Hello?”

“Esteban?” comes the voice from the other line. Sean recognizes it immediately. Daniel was right. It’s Marc.

“Um...No, sorry. This is Sean. Esteban’s...he’s not here right now.” He feels weird giving away that much information, but...well, it seems clear now that Marc isn’t the bad guy. Besides, this is probably what he would say in any other situation. Gotta keep up appearances, right?

“Oh, I see. Sorry, you...you sound so much like him.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” Somehow, Sean doesn’t feel quite as proud when Marc says it as he did when Sam did. “This is Marc, right?”

“Yes. Um, sorry for scaring you kids last night.”

“Yeah, well. I think I get why. Listen, dude, there’s...something you should know. Dad is...Esteban is missing, and we—”

“Hold on,” Marc interrupts, voice suddenly panicked. “Don’t say another word. He’s...what? Wait right there, I’ll be right over. We can...we can talk through the door like I said yesterday. That okay?”

“Um, yeah, I guess. But—”

“I’ll be there in five minutes. Keep the doors locked.”

“Sure, but what—”

But the line has already gone dead.


End file.
